PUNK POETRY: Happy Hour by Olin Wish

We just get done 

Picking our health insurance 

 

Mandatory open enrollment 

And outside, gray and cold clouds 

But no rain 

 

The threat, maybe 

Prevents me from staining the 

Kid’s playground 

Like I’ve talked about doing 

The last three weeks 

 

I shuffle off to my den 

Like a Thorazine victim 

And do crunches 

And leg lifts because its 

Too cold to go out 

Too cold to plant a garden 

 

Check email 

Wish for something to say 

So maybe I can blog for a living – instead of this 

Put little exclamation points in the 

Upper right hand corner of the page 

Of all the poems I like 

 

And maybe soon go to the library 

I’ll need a book to listen to on the way to work tomorrow

And these odometers and overdue 

Notices and missed opportunities 

Don’t have me.  Yet.  

 

I find it hard to believe 

People can make a living off advertisement 

Till I go outside, till I go where the people do 

And see the way they dress 

The way they move, and 

Talk and ignore each other like marked fire hydrants 

Of apathy double parked in a red zone 

 

Double fisted energy drink of cherry 

Lip gloss and new tattoo ink

Mushroom clouding stangers on the elevator 

--Olin Wish